Get a gift you love

What can be more tedious for a just married couple than wondering what to do with the four casseroles, two wall clocks and ceramic figurines that they’ve just been gifted? Fortunately, you can now decide what you’d like to receive at your wedding. Once an alien concept in India, gift registries are slowly becoming more popular. A number of stores in Mumbai now offer this service.

Mozaic, the month-old home décor store in Bandra, offers a gift registry not just for weddings but also for house warming celebrations. Shilpa Gupta, the proprietor of the store, says that people are slowly opening up to the idea of asking for presents. “Our culture is not to go out and ask for gifts,” she says. “But since your close friends and family will anyway want to gift you something that you like, it makes sense to start a gift registry.”

At Mozaic, the process of setting up a registry is fairly simple. The couple visits the store and picks out a list of things that they would like to receive. The store then puts up this list on its website. Invitees can refer to the list and pick out a present, depending on their budget. “Everything in the store can be added to the registry,” says Gupta. The service is also completely free.

Apart from wedding and house warming registries, expectant moms can also set up a baby shower registry at some stores in the city. Bumblebee, a furniture and accessories store for children in Colaba, has been offering this service for a few years now.

Prospective moms can choose items for the child’s nursery, such as cots, bedding sets, coordinated night lights etc. “In Mumbai, very few people have a separate nursery so they can also put smaller items like towels, bibs and other essentials on the registry.” Once the registry is complete, the store sends out text messages to the family and friends of the customer.

Going one step further, lifestyle store GOODEARTH even sends out PDFs of various gifting options to the guests that a couple would like to include in its wedding registry. “We can send the couple monthly or weekly updates of which gifts have been purchased,” says Amrita Punjwani from the marketing department of GOODEARTH. “After the wedding, all the purchases are delivered together on a date that’s convenient to the couple.”